China's STAR Composite Index closes higher Friday

The STAR Composite Index, which reflects the performance of stocks on China's sci-tech innovation board, closed 0.79 percent higher at 2,020.45 points on Friday.

The STAR 50 Index, which tracks the 50 largest stocks listed on the board that also meet certain liquidity requirements, closed flat at 1,717.68 points.

The sci-tech innovation board, commonly known as the STAR Market, was inaugurated in June 2019 at Shanghai Stock Exchange. It is designed to support companies in the high-tech and strategic emerging sectors.

The second World Humanoid Robot Games scheduled for Aug 22 to Aug 26 in Beijing will set a series of scenario-based contests to test robots' capability of executing real-world tasks in demanding environments.

The upcoming games will see the number of participating robots quadrupling from last year's inaugural event, organizers said.

They said this year's games will feature more than 30 events, including newly added long jump, weightlifting, tug of war and table tennis, which are designed to test robots' motion control, structural design and core components.

Scenario-based contests will also be expanded to real-world settings that include factories, hotels, homes and logistics facilities. Tasks such as assembling, housekeeping, emergency response and library book sorting will test robots' ability to perform practical tasks.

Specifically, the event for testing participating robots' emergency response capability will include tasks of clearing fire escape passages, and setting up one meter cordon fence in emergency zones, to comprehensively test robots' ability to coordinate their arms and to plan their paths.

"Our robots have better generalized our arms' trajectory in opening doors or windows. Through some subtle designs, like equipping our robots with rotary grippers, they are capable of opening doors with a spherical knob. The more difficult task is setting up one-meter cordon fence, which is our key focus for training robots and optimizing their capabilities this year," said Li Jing, product director at UniX AI, a company specializing in advancing real-world deployment of general-purpose humanoid robots.

Compared with the last edition of the games, the number of scenario based events rises from 6 to 21, and the robots will upgrade from performing a task single-handedly to doing teamwork by two or even four participants.